These resin pendant necklaces are the final craft that we made at girls camp last June. (I planned one more craft that we didn’t have time for in the end: yo yo headbands and pins. I’ll share that craft next week.) They were inspired by bethtastic’s amazing photo necklaces. We chose something from nature or created a scrapbook-paper design to embed in the resin. The girls embedded blossoms, leaves, twigs, bugs, and spiders. One girl even put the tick that had been removed from her body in her pendant. And some girls embedded their .22 shells saved from shooting at the camp rifle range.

Although the girls loved the pendants, I wouldn’t recommend this as a camp craft. Four reasons: 1) The process is quite involved and doesn’t lend itself to group participation, 2) It requires some special tools, 3) Cold weather delayed the typical 24-hour cure time, and 4) The end result was unpredictable. Almost everything from nature floated out of place and changed color (usually yellow or brown), some more dramatically than others. It became a science experiment to see how each pendant would turn out.

A special thank you to my lovely and talented sister-in-law, Devon, who single-handedly taught the girls how to wrap the wire (or did it for them) and attach their ribbons and cords.

Because I learned how to do this on YouTube, I thought it best to share those videos with you instead of doing a step-by-step tutorial myself. (Not to mention save myself a lot of work!) These are the best resin jewelry videos that I found. Enjoy!

Kristi said,

Monica, as always, you made it look easy and the girls loved their pendants! It was a fun experiment to see how things would turn out and judging by the fact that everyone wanted to make about 10 more, I’d say this craft was a complete success!!! : )

Lisa said,

Thank you ! I love that you tried something new with your group and when some didn’t turn out perfect you put a positive spin on it! Let’s face it – not all of our crafting project turn out as we hope – it’s was great to hear how even though the project didn’t completely turn out as planned, seems like everyone had fun and even learned a few crafty tricks!